US State Department spokesperson lashes out at reporters over Gaza aid site killings

US State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce on Tuesday blasted reporters at the daily briefing for focusing their questions on the civilian casualties at the US-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid site, instead of the number of meals that were delivered. 

"Everyone has wanted food and aid to go through into Gaza. It is a war zone, and different kinds of decisions have to be made. People put their lives at risk to get the aid into those kinds of regions. And this is one of those cases," she said. "We'll find out through the [Israeli forces] investigation what occurred."

Earlier in the day, the White House confirmed that it is going to "look into reports" of casualties. Gaza health officials and eyewitnesses have said at least 27 people were killed by Israeli bullets on Tuesday as they tried to secure food boxes from the scandal-plagued GHF aid mechanism.

"I think we are now at seven million meals distributed to date. Now, obviously we would like perfection. There is no perfection in under any circumstance," Bruce said.

"We are fighting a great deal with these [media] stories about who's responsible, the focus on Israel, the nature of who's been attacking in that region, the responsibility of Iran... these questions are critiques of an environment that we've talked about regularly, every day, every time I'm up here," she told reporters. 

"I thought after three months of being harangued in this room by many of you about, 'Don't you care about the starving Gazans?' Seven million meals and now we're being harangued about 'It's not by the right people.'"